Game of Thrones for Noobs XXII

The Story Thus FarThe moon-faced Arya Stark poisoned the shit outta just about every Frey while Jon Snow and Sansa gathered up their political pals to talk about Dragonglass (an element that kills the ice zombies) just as Snow's pudgy buddy from The Wall found a book explaining where to find the stuff—in a town that Daenerys and Tyrion just so happened to have sailed toward (and that was, like, all dragon-themed). Uncle Greyjoy went to Cersei to try and join forces but she was like, "No thank you." Clegane spent a good long while digging a grave, and it was boring. Oh, and Ed Sheeran creeped everyone out. Hold onto your butts—it's Game of Thrones for Noobs!

The Gist

It was a dark and stormy night in and around Dragon City, the new home of Deanerys "Dragon Tits" Targareyan and Tyrion "The Station Agent" Lannister. Danny is kinda bummed out, but some bald guy (who might be that guy Varys of the Westeros Pinfields, but hand to God I can't remember) is there to be like, "Yeah, we should fight people." She's down, and she reminisces about the good old days when it wasn't abnormal to take dragons to war. Tyrion, displaying the judgment of a saint, is ready to fight Cersei, but he points out they don't have to kill everyone. Everyone agrees that Daenerys wasn't famous til she married Aquaman a few years back, and that just don't sit right with her. Her curly tresses flap and fly in the rainy wind. Oh! She refers to him as Varys, so cool—we're good. Still, she makes him promise her he won't, like, stab her while she's asleep or something with a kicky little remark about burning him alive. He agrees just in time for that Red Witch (who brought Snow back to life last year and who's name I couldn't remember if my life depended on it) to show up and stare all creepy-like. Varys ain't feeling it, especially since she made that Stannis guy burn his daughter alive in the old days, but maybe this witch has no place to go, so she has to be cool. "The long night is coming," she says, "and we need a prince." Daenerys isn't a dude, but her progressive translater is like, "Fuck gender pronouns, they're a regressive social construct for which I have no patience!" Everyone agrees that having an open mind and ditching annoying conceits rooted in systematic oppression is a good plan. Everyone also knows Jon Snow because he famous, but also he hates Cersei as much as they do. A win/win for everyone who wants to kill jerks.

Back in King's Landing, Cersei sits on the sword throne scaring her constituents with promises of dead kids and burned villages. She clearly wants them on her team and is pretty evil. Her haircut still looks good, though, so maybe prison wasn't that bad? She's amassing an army to fight Daenerys, but people know about her dragons because that's, like, her fucking thing she does. People are nervous, especially Jamie, who meets some guy named Dickon (Georgie must've been running out of fantasy-sounding names by then) and tries to get him on the team. He makes promises about how his Cersei love has less to do with their gratuitous incest and more to do with lust for power. He badmouths eunuchs, which is wack because what else can they really go through? Cersei, meanwhile, is thinking about renovating the castle basement. Her contractor is like, "See, your problem is you've got a huge-ass dragon skull in here taking up all the room." Also discovered is a trebuchet, which they'll presumably use to slay them dragons if and when it comes down to it; there are not really animal cruelty laws in Westeros, probably because they're more worried about ice zombies.

Once again in Dragonstone, Danny and Tyrion have what's-her-face—the queen of that Persian-esque country…seriously, what's her name!? Anyway, she's there along with Olenna and her pillbox hat to wax philosophical about respect born of fear. Daenerys, however, plans on starving out King's Landing instead of murdering everyone she comes across. Right on, that's nice, I guess. In the background, Theon and Sheon hang about silently wondering where their murderous uncle might be. Most everyone leaves, but Olenna and Daenerys hang around to talk about how being a lady is hard. They're not wrong. And then the former slaves buy a one-way ticket to Bone City since they'll probably be embroiled in a fucking dragon war any day now.

Over at the library where Pudgy Junior spends his days shelving books and carrying buckets of shit around, Jim Broadbent is still laying into this dude. See, Pudgy thinks he's got the cure for stone-itis, but Broadbent is old-school as fuck and just is like, "No way, sucker." But you know Pudgy, and he brews a concoction for Jorah anyway. Somehow it's less believable that this idiot could cure an infamous disease than any of the rest of the dragon shit and ice zombies and whatever else. I mean, he's not a doctor, right? The most he's ever done is to follow Snow around like some lovesick little punk. Anyway, he starts cutting into the stuff, which is super gross and oozy, and Jorah just kind of deals with it, although you'd think they could at least have knocked him out or something before cutting him all up.

We finally catch up with Arya, who sneakily became about the best part of this show because she's ready to kill literally anyone who crosses her. She is, in fact, so badass, that she keeps telling people she's out to kill Cersei. She does, however, find out that Ramsay Bolton is dead and Jon Snow is, like, the guy up in the North now. She immediately hops on her horse and heads off somewhere. Snow, meanwhile, announces his intentions to travel to Dragonstone to forge an alliace and get the stuff to kill ice zombies. He's the king, right? So why does he have to explain his shit to people? Ugh. He should just die again. And don't get me started on Sansa—always fucking nay-saying Snow's choices and stirring up shit. Epithets and shit-talkery abound in the great hall, though, because ain't nobody like a Lannister and ain't nobody like a Targeryan. Why!? Aw, who cares. Anyway, they tell him he shouldn't leave the town, but Snow makes a speech about how he can go where he wants and everyone should be afraid of ice zombies. And even though she never lets up on him, Snow puts Sansa in charge for while he's gone. And oh wow, suddenly she's all onboard with whatever he wants to do. Jeeze. To celebrate, Snow hangs with Baelish in some horrible fucking catacomb and the pair critiques the states they have there and stroke each other's egos. Snow doesn't like Baelish because he married Sansa to Ramsay, so threats are made while the rest of us wonder who lights the candles in the fucking catacombs. Its snows and snows and snows some more, and Sansa waves from the balcony pretending like she's conflicted about her newfound power and already drafting laws that no one will like.

While that goes down, Arya is just straight-cold woods hanging, but her horse doesn't like it one bit. He's seen The Neverending Story and knows what happens to horses in creepy forests and swamps and such. Gigantic wolves appear as if from nowhere, and Arya seems awfully spooked for a magic assassin who kills whoever she wants. But wait, actually, the biggest wolf of all time shows up. Good thing Arya knows it. Like, she knows this wolf. By name. "It's me, Nymeria," she says, "I'm going on a trip and you should come with," and the wolf is all like, "All I know is ripping up flesh with my fangs!" before leaving. I mean, I guess that sucks, but it also didn't eat her, so it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to her. "That ain't my wolf," she thinks to herself.

Out at sea, the queen of the Persia-like lands trash talks the booze situation on their ship while her daughters argue about who's gonna kill who. Theon and Sheon maybe don't know how much this lady likes to kill people, but it seems like it's gonna be more of a sex situation for Sheon and Queen What's-Her-Dick. Too bad the ship gets attacked, though, especially since it's Uncle Greyjoy and his armada of floating death machines. He's completely nuts, too, and a blood-spraying sea battle takes place. Fire is everywhere, throats are slashed with wild abandon and dudes with spiky brass knuckles punch so many faces it's unreal. Theon gets a few good stabs in for sure, but they're losing an awful lot of buddies. Don't even get me started on the bonkers crotch stabbings that go down or how Uncle Greyjoy is so good at fighting that even Queen What's-Her-Dick's assassin daughters can't fight him (they get killed so hard). The ultimate family feud slows only as Sheon is held captive leaving Theon to try and fucking do something positive for once in his life. But instead he runs away. Or swims away. Either way, he's a fucking coward, although the crotch stabbing would probably freak anyone out. He floats at sea like his name is Rose Dawson or something while the last ship standing sails off into the distance. Good luck going home after this shit, you fucking dick.

The GoodThe fight scenes were pretty exciting.

The BadWhat is this emphasis on gross-out stone-itis surgeries and the stabbing of crotches? Why do they need to go that far!?

The Grade: CStormborn was probably full of useful information and is surely meant to just set the stage for some pretty good stuff, but there was way more jibber-jabbering between the good stuff than seemed necessary. The gargantuan wolf was pretty alright, but there was a fair level of mostly boring crap at play.